Bodegas

I don't know a good literal translation for this word, but it is tiny little shops run by one person (typically a very old person) which carries a little bit of everything food-wise, but not really everything as the shop may only be 10 feet by 5 feet. May be just one of lots of very specific food stuff.

We have a bodega in our life that I love. I think the old guy that runs it is Cuban. He speaks Spanish and loves my boys and I. They carry all the little food items I know from my childhood - the pastry to make pastillos (the fired version of an empanadas which we stuff with cheese, meat or guava jelly), Turron (hard nougat candy with nuts), all the canned Goya products, and plantains (green bananas to make tostones). I go in and find something new on the shelves every visit; this week I found a "tomato paste with seasoning (cilantro, etc) for cooking".

I'm pretty sure this little bodega that I love is one of two things; either a front for something, or a relic from when my neighborhood was the old West Side Story. But I go in and find new stuff on the shelves all the time. I hardly ever see another woman in the shop. It is always a bunch of old Cuban guys watching sports on a tiny TV on the top shelf and talking. So it is hard to tell, is it really a bodega or a front?

In the summer they play dominos on the side walk outside the shop. They all acknowledge me now when I walk by or stop in (the shop is on the way to the post office, so I'm by about everyday). But they only speak in Spanish, and I use my terrible Spanish grammar to chat with them, but they don't care.

They've introduced the boys to homemade coconut macaroons, pressed coconut candies, guava jelly, and pastillos. They are the only place I know where I can get the pastries for pastillos. And yeah, I buy a frozen stack of 10 about every week. Recently, with family visits and friends over, I've gone to buying two packs at a time (Special note a pack of 10 sells for $1! Where else can you buy a real food ingredient for only a $1?!).

I know this doesn't sound sexy or exciting. But the fact that this tiny shop exists. That this amazing group of old guys has accepted me and the kids and smile at us, even though I'm still not convinced they are not running numbers, makes me happy every time I visit. They are the old soul of this city. They seem in tune with my soul. And they have never questioned why me, the whitest looking Puerto Rican on the planet visits with a blond child and Asian child. Instead, one guy heads to the freezer for my pastries and the other shows the boys the latest candy in.

I love these old men. They have no idea.